Emma, please don’t do this to me.
Finn clammed up whenever I tried to steer the texts to a flirtier place, which I understood. Sexting wasn’t really my thing either. And like he had said, thingswerecomplicated. The logistics alone were tricky—we were living on opposite sides of the country, for starters. But even so, it felt like we could work through all those issues together. Like maybe this would be the weekend where we’d finally talk about makingusofficial.
After all, there were only so many times you could hook up with a friend before they stopped being a friend and started being something more. Right?
AFTER A COUPLE OFruns (blues only, since I did not want to risk injury before getting to enjoy the dance floor with Finn tonight), Nikki and I stowed our gear in a locker and broke for lunch at a cozy German restaurant at the foot of the mountain.
“What am I going to do if I can’t text you for eight weeks?” I asked, blowing on the steaming cup of cider our waiter had just set in front of me. Nikki had just been cast onLovedByand would have her phone confiscated once filming began. After months and months of listening to Nikki complain that none of the guys in LA wanted something serious, I decided to sign her up, and just as I predicted, she’d sailed through auditions with flying colors. But now that it was really happening, I found myself almost regretting having sent in her application… and giving yet another friend a reason to move away without me.
Sybil had been grumbling about suffering through another New York City winter, and I could sense that she was itching to move back to the West Coast, where she’d had four years of seventy-five degrees and sunny during college. And then there was Willow, who had been spending more and more time abroad, dealing with family stuff over there, and now Nikki was going to be sequestered in a TV mansion for the next two months. Instinctively my hand reached for my cell phone, itching to text Finn. I wanted to tell him how I felt like adulthood was pulling my friends in all different directions, and how I hoped that he’d be the one exception to that rule.
“Don’t worry. I won’t forget you while I’m gone,” Nikki said, taking a sip of her cider. “And I won’t replace you either. After all,I’m not here to make friends,” she said with exaggerated bitchiness, holding up her manicured claws. I snorted, and she released her cat pose and slouched back in her seat. “What?You don’t think I’d make a good villain? I could totally flip a table or something.”
“I think you would be the worst villain of all time. You’d flip a table and then be back two minutes later with a mop and broom,” I said. “I think you should just be yourself, and then whoever the guy contestant is, they’re guaranteed to fall in love with you.” Our waiter was back, placing our orders in front of us. I dove in immediately, smearing a forkful of spaetzle and schnitzel with lingonberry sauce before dipping it in gravy.
Nikki picked up her knife and fork, but didn’t make a move to eat. “What ifIdon’t fall in love withhim?” she asked softly. “Everyone on these shows acts like it’s a foregone conclusion that all the girls will fall for the guy, but what’s the likelihood that the one guy they pick is my soulmate?”
I set my fork down and reached across the table for her hand. “I guess you just have to be honest—with yourself, and with him. But either way, it’s going to be a once-in-a-lifetime experience.”
We decided to try to squeeze one more run in before we had to start getting ready for the wedding. The packed snow squeaked beneath my ski boots as I walked over to the rack where we’d left our skis. I had just clicked my boots into my bindings and was pushing over toward the gondola when I spotted him.
Finn was just a few yards ahead of us, standing in dark ski pants and a hunter-green jacket, his helmet tucked under his arm.
My heart rate ratcheted up as I called out his name. He seemed startled at the sound of my voice, then smiled and gave me a small wave. The sight of him, live in person and not just aseries of gray bubbles on my phone screen, made me suddenly nervous. I tried to skate over to him, and promptly crossed my ski tips and fell flat on my face, even though I was basically standing on a flat patch of ground. I could see Finn chuckling behind his neck warmer. Nikki pulled me up and unclipped my boots from my skis, thrusting them into my hands and not so gently pushing me toward him and the gondola that went to the summit.
“Oh, man. Y’all, I realized I forgot my… ski… goggles,” she said.
“They’re right on your—” Finn motioned to the goggles on her head, but Nikki was already moving away from us, blocked by the next scrum of skiers jockeying for a gondola.
“She’ll figure it out.” I shrugged, quietly grateful that I’d get this time alone with Finn before the onslaught of wedding activities. Nikki might have been worried about being villainized onLovedBy, but she’d clearly be adored by the other women because she had the wing-woman role down pat—including when to bow out not so subtly.
“Allow me.” Finn pulled my skis and poles from my hands and put them in the ski rack of the slow-moving gondola. The group in front of us had filled up the previous gondola, and there was a gap behind us, so Finn and I ended up in a little cable car by ourselves. The liquid caramel sensation of finding myself alone with him for the first time in months seeped through my veins, warming my frozen toes. We sat on the bench seats opposite each other, our knees almost touching, our breath mingling in little puffs of cold air. Even though I was wearing about a dozen layers, including a very unsexy set of thermal long underwear, I suddenly felt naked in front ofFinn. Probably because the last time we were together, Iwasnaked in front of Finn. Well, half-naked, at least.
As the gondola started up the mountain, I turned my gaze out the window, trying to slow my racing heart. Below us, little kids in ski school were pizza-wedging their way down an easy green trail, led by their instructor. I watched their wide slalom path down the hill for a minute, trying to regulate my breathing in time with their turns.
“So, how have you been?” I asked as casually as possible.
But Finn was glancing at his phone. A gust of wind hit the gondola. As it swung slightly on its cable, I felt the lump of spaetzle from lunch shift in my stomach. Finally, Finn finished with whatever he was reading and tucked his phone into the sleeve pocket of his ski jacket. “Sorry. Just wanted to make sure my group up ahead was okay.” There seemed to be tension radiating off Finn as he turned back toward me. “Um, I’m good. Great.”
“Great.” The sound-deadening snow that blanketed the mountain amplified the silence filling our small space. I looked around for something to say.
“That’s a nice coat.”
“Have you been down any black diamonds?”
We spoke at the same time, then smiled sheepishly. Finn’s face relaxed, and I could feel the awkwardness starting to evaporate, and in its place, I felt that that familiar Finn feeling: safe, but with a crackle of excitement, like walking a tightrope, but knowing there’s a net to catch you. I realized that I was so keyed up about seeing him that I must have been projecting that sense of tension I thought I had seen on Finn’s face. He was probably just as nervous as I was. Like with Nikki andLovedBy, it was one thing to fantasize about something, playing out all kinds of scenarios in your head—but when you’re actually in the moment and the reality hits you, it can be kind of nerve-racking. And besides, the short ride up the mountain was probably not the time to do a deep dive into our future plans. Or even our plans for later that night… though I’d had more than a few fantasies already about the dance floor, and the after-party, and maybe having our own littleafter-after-party. Still, it was better to just let things unfold naturally, I decided. Like I’d been doing with our texts over the last few months, it was better to take things slow and let him lead.
“We didn’t really grow up skiing,” I said, trying to keep the lustful thoughts off my face by answering his question about the black diamonds, “so I’m more of a blue square kind of girl. Have you been skiing a lot?”
“Not really as a kid. Pilar’s family had a place in Deer Valley that we used to go to a couple times a year, but they sold it.”
“One less reason to date her,” I joked weakly.
A slight frown formed across Finn’s brow. “About Pilar, Emma—”
But just then the gondola jerked and slowed as we reached the summit. Finn and I stood up, stepping out of the car and onto the landing, grabbing our skis and carrying them over to the trailhead.
“What were you going to sa—”
